Scattered Thoughts . . .

I haven't written in a while so I'm long overdue for an update.  I was going to write about a few different things in this blog entry that have kept me away from typing here and I actually started typing but I quickly realized that the first thing I was typing about really should have a blog entry of its own so I'm going to stick with this morning's topic...  my latest computer upgrades.  I'll write about other topics in separate blog entries sometime later.  My primary desktop computer that I use every single day is now about five years old.  It is still a powerful computer even by today's standards but it needed some preventative maintenance as well as a few upgrades.  Five years of daily use is a long time.   The primary issue that needed to be resolved is that my C: drive was almost full.  It was so full that just browsing the internet for a few days would collect enough temporary files that my C: drive would move into the red warning area (less than 10gb&

This morning, we did a short hike in Montpelier to Hubbard Park.  I'll write more about that and share some photos in another blog entry.  After our hike, we went to lunch at Sarducci's.  Next to Sarducci's is a single railroad line used primarily for transporting granite.  The kids were hoping we would see a granite train coming through the city while we were there.  The chances of this happening are very slim but, who knows?  Maybe we could get lucky... While eating lunch, we heard a train coming through.  Unfortunately, we were seated on the porch overlooking the river on the opposite side of the building where the railroad tracks are located so we couldn't see the train.  We did hear him...  we heard the rumble of the engine...  we felt the vibrating building as the train passed by...  we heard the horn...  and we heard the clanging bell as it slowly crept across streets.  The kids were kind of bummed that we couldn't see the train making its way through downtow

My summers over the past few years have been mostly completely lost summers of poor health and it looks as though this summer will be the same.   I had been sick all through the last three weeks of July with what was likely and presumably COVID, yet again, and now I have the terribly inflamed joint problem starting all over again just like after the first two times I had COVID.  As if that is not enough, either I am developing a mild case of shingles or those shingles-like symptoms are related to my inflamed joints.  If so, rather than having inflamed joints lingering for months, it is more like inflamed nerves.   About five days ago, I started developing pain from my right brow up across my forehead and across my scalp to the back of my head.  It is definitely burning, overly-sensitive, and irritated skin as opposed to something under the bone like in the brain.  We initially figured that maybe the latest bout with COVID triggered shingles.   I've had the better and newest shingle

M any  nights before heading to bed, I continue to try to refine my workflow for processing my solar imagery data.  I'm definitely beginning to understand what needs to be done in this process because I feel my resulting images are getting better and better.  This photo, below, is a photo I compiled and processed from data collected just a couple of days ago on July 31st.   I've found that when I black out the disk/sphere of the sun, everything on the limb of the sun really stands out.  The fine hair-like spicules of red-hot plasma are clearly visible all along the limb.  In this particular shot, there is a rather large prominence too which really is the main subject here.  This is red glowing plasma consisting of hydrogen and helium.  This prominence is flowing and looping along magnetic fields about 24,000 miles into the corona from in front of the limb to back behind the limb in this photo.  Generally speaking, prominences can flow and loop into the corona upwards of tens of

I did some mower blade sharpening and balancing this morning.  That little bit of activity started another coughing bout which helped to clear out my lungs a bit so I guess that is a good outcome.   This illness/virus just won't go away though.  My O2 level is at 94% now which is not great but better than it has been.  I've been as low as the mid-80s.  So, I suppose I am improving...  slowly...  very slowly.  I suspect that the low oxygen intake is adding to my usual overwhelming fatigue.  Anyway, I did a little bit of very light work in the yard this morning. Oh yeah...  before I did the blade sharpening, I also sheared a bush in the yard that was far too shaggy.  Shaggy, sloppy landscaping drives me crazy.  There is rarely a good excuse for it so I hate seeing it.  Shaggy, sloppy landscaping is more often due to laziness and I hate laziness and procrastination as well.   The most strenuous part of cleaning up that one tall bush in our yard was pulling out a step ladder and c

I am still feeling rather lousy and lacking energy so I didn't think it would be wise to do much today.  My plan was to lay low and recover.  I want this virus behind me...  once again!  (Perhaps the third time is the charm.)   The lawn is in need of mowing but I have been putting that off for the past few days in an attempt to recover.  This morning was a fairly clear day outside though so I mustered up the energy to drag one of my telescopes outside to do some solar observing again for a short while.  This wouldn't require nearly as much energy as mowing the lawn or any other project that needs to be done so solar observing was the thing to do this morning. This time I grabbed my longest telescope so I could do some closeup observing. I haven't used this telescope in a while.  This telescope is fairly long at 1000mm.  When we combine that with the internal Barlow lens of the Quark Chromosphere hydrogen alpha solar filter I was using, that put my total focal length at 420

I 'm still feeling rather lousy and coughing whenever I move so I'm laying low at home.  This morning, however, I accomplished a few small maintenance tasks on my astronomy gear.   First, I wanted to install a better saddle on my newly converted EXOS2 manual mount (photo at right).  I don't care for saddles with a single bolt holding my telescope on the mount.  I prefer two pressure clamps holding my telescopes.  I had ordered an appropriate saddle a few weeks ago and it arrived this past week.  I just needed to drill a hole and then assemble it so that was a small and easy task that proved to be unremarkable.  Then I moved to my best telescope.  My Explore Scientific 102mm APO refractor recently developed a sticky focuser.  It wasn't sticking to a complete stop but it was not as smooth as I like it.  Any bit of stickiness in the focuser causes some vibration in your view so I new I wanted to resolve this little problem before I got worse.  This task was a little more i

I 'm still down for the count with some sort of bad cold or virus so I'm not doing much (yet still testing negative for COVID...  I don't believe it though).  Whenever I attempt to do something, such as walk across a room, I start coughing and coughing and coughing.  So, I'm sitting in the house trying to figure out what I can do. The sun was shining in between lots of scattered clouds which reminded that the last time I had my good solar filter out (the other day) it did not work.  I saw no detail and then noticed that my power LED was not illuminated.  I made an assumption that my battery was the issue but I had not tested the filter again, visually, since then.  I figured that since I wasn't doing much this morning that perhaps this would be a good time to set up a telescope to test the filter.   This particular filter is a specialized hydrogen alpha filter but is really considered an "entry level" filter but that doesn't mean it is at a budget pric

So, I'm still testing negative for COVID but I am feeling quite lousy... coughing up a lung every few minutes...  also with barking coughs...  chest congestion and coughing up phlegm...  and just generally feeling lousy...  and tired.  I've been doing so much coughing that I'm sure the neighbors must think I am dying of COVID in here.   It is time to make lunch but I just want to lie down and sleep.  Coughing sometimes hurts in my chest but hurts my head most of the time.  I don't have a headache but my head pounds with each cough.  This is a really strange illness that I've never experienced before in my life.  It is very, very hard to believe that I am truly testing negative for COVID.  Then again, I have very little faith nor confidence in the accuracy of the COVID tests.  

M y little project for yesterday morning was to get the spacing adjusted correctly so I can capture the complete full disk of the sun including any prominences that may be extending from the limb in Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) with my current telescope and camera.  This little project was actually a tedious process of trial and error but I succeeded as seen in the photo (at right).   In hindsight, I should have set up my new mount for this project so I didn't have to constantly spend time tracking the sun manually.  Instead, I used a lightweight manual mount that has no slow motion controls because I am still quite sick with either COVID or a bad respiratory cold.  Setting up the new mount would have required more energy than I have right now so I opted for a much smaller mount.  Unfortunately, this smaller mount made this project a bit more tedious than it needs to be.  I was constantly nudging the telescope to keep it in my field of view as the sun slowly moved across the sky.  If I used